The coordinator of St. Petersburg truckers, while in the forest, reported persecution

One of the coordinators of the protesting truck drivers from St. Petersburg and coordinator of the TIGR movement, Alexander Rastorguev, reported persecution while in the forest, Svetlana Gavrilina writes on her Facebook page.

“Everything is very bad - he was escaping pursuit, standing in the forest waist-deep in water. He’s afraid that he might get shot,” Gavrilina wrote. According to her information, Rastorguev was in the Leningrad region.

Gavrilina indicated that Rastorguev was planning to leave for Moscow. According to her, mobile communications were very poor.

She also reported on Facebook that Rastorguev was first stopped on the highway, and then he was “blocked” by employees of the Department for Combating Extremism under the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Center “E”) and the traffic police, from whom he ran away.

Rastorguev's call was interrupted, after which it was impossible to contact him. Later Rastorguev reported that he came out of the forest onto the highway.

Rastorguev also said that he left St. Petersburg on a Moscow truck. Having passed the checkpoints, the truck was stopped by traffic police officers, who pulled out the driver of the truck and put him in a service car. Behind the truck, according to Rastorguev, there were two cars from Center “E”. After that, Rastorguev took his things and ran into the forest.

Rastorguev told the St. Petersburg publication “My District” that he is now walking along the Leningradskoye Highway towards Moscow. He expects to reach the “snail” (a chain of truck drivers moving at low speed) and get to Moscow with them. He also clarified that he fell into a hole with water while running away from law enforcement officers. According to Rastorguev, his license was previously taken away.

On November 29, the day before the planned large-scale action of truck drivers, Rastorguev was detained for an unpaid fine. He was later released from court because the judge returned the arrest papers to the police due to violations. Rastorguev’s driver’s license was also returned, but the documents for the car were confiscated and sent for examination.